Biography

TERESA CATALAN (Pamplona, ​​Navarra, 1951). The 2017 Winner of the Spanish National Prize (composition) for Music, awarded by the King, is a native of Pamplona, where she studied piano and composition at the “Pablo Sarasate” Conservatory. She has studied composition with: Agustín González Acilu (Contemporary Composition Techniques) and Ramón Barce (Sociology of Music). She also attended the Composition courses given by Franco Donatoni at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena (Italy) and master classes by important European and American composers.

She has a Master in Aesthetics and Musical Creativity from the University of Valencia and a PhD from the University of Valencia in Philosophy of Art.

The prolific composer has received several awards and current prestigious appointments in recognition of her musical career, including the already mentioned National Music Prize (composition, 2017), the Prince of Viana Culture Award (2021) and the Eusko Ikaskuntza Award for Humanities, Culture, Arts and Social Sciences (2022). She has the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts (2021) and the Order of the Civil Merit Order (2011).

She is a full member of JAKIUNDE, Academy of Arts, Sciences and Letters of Euskadi, Navarra and Aquitania, belongs to the National Council for Music and the Advisory Council for the Royal (Opera) Theater. She has been a member of the State Council for Performing Arts and Music, the National Council for Music and the Navarran Council for Culture and Arts and the Culture and Arts Council of the Government of Navarra..

A founding member of the Pamplona Composers Group / Iruñeako Taldea Musikagileak, she has also directed the music section of different Festivals, Courses and International activities. She has received commissions from numerous interpreters and institutions and her works have been scheduled in important Festivals in Germany, Italy, France, Argentina, Russia, USA, Holland, Romania, Cuba and Mexico, among others, and have been included in different albums recorded in Spain and Hungary.

She is the author of the treatise Composite Temperate Systems in the 20th Century (2nd ed.), And co-author of Non-tonal Music: The Proposals by J. Falk and E. Krenek. She has published various articles and presentations in books, magazines, as well as several of her musical works in Spain and Germany.

She regularly teaches courses and conferences at festivals, institutions, universities, and conservatories in Spain and other countries such as, Russia, Switzerland, Germany, Morocco, Italy and Argentina. Likewise, she regularly participates in juries of different awards and competitions in the field of composition and musical performance, both national and international.

She has been Director of the Conservatorio de Tarazona (Zaragoza), Deputy Director of the Conservatorio Superior de Zaragoza and Head of Department at the Conservatories of Zaragoza and Madrid. She has also been a Guest Professor and Associate Professor at the Conservatorio Superior de les Illes Ballears.

Director of many doctoral Theses, she has been, by government exam of the Ministry of Education and Science since 1990, Professor of Composition and Instrumentation at the Royal Conservatory of Music of Madrid. She was appointed Emeritus Professor, and is currently working in the Music and Science and Technology PhD program, developed by the RCSMM and the Polytechnic University of Madrid.